Liudmila Davydenko

Some artists speak through colours, others through form, but with Liudmila Davydenko, it’ something more - something beneath the surface, beneath even the layers of paint she so meticulously applies to her canvases. I first came across her work at an exhibition in Vienna, where her paintings, rich in texture and introspection, seemed to hold something unseen, something just out of reach. I knew then that I needed to understand her process, to see her world through her own eyes. Our visit to her studio in Lviv was planned after a long working session with my co-founders. It was a chance to engage directly with an artist whose work had left an impression on me. When we arrived, the setting was unexpectedly cinematic, her studio was nestled inside an old Soviet industrial building, its long, dimly lit corridors stretching endlessly like something out of Kubrick’ The Shining. There was a strange stillness in the air, a kind of suspended time, which somehow made the vibrancy of her paintings even more striking. Stepping into her workspace, I was immediately met with the scent of oil paint and the quiet discipline of an artist deeply immersed in her craft. Liudmila belongs to a generation of artists for whom patience and precision are second nature. Her early training as a sculptor is evident in the way she approaches her paintings - not as flat compositions, but as something three-dimensional, something that carries weight and substance. She doesn’ simply paint; she constructs. Every piece undergoes an intricate layering process, sometimes up to eight layers deep, giving the final work a sense of depth that feels almost geological, as if revealing different strata of meaning.